t’s certainly been a journey for Valve. A week prior to the Steam Frame’s launch, we spoke with two engineers at Valve about the project: Joy Lyons, hardware engineer, and Jeremy Selan, software engineer. The memory crisis and the price were a big part of that conversation. From that chat, we can confirm that Valve had aimed for a lower price point than the one it’s launching the Frame for today.
Here’s Lyons on the memory crisis:
“We set out to design this hardware with one particular price in mind, but we’ve made choices to make sure that we’re making a product that is choiceful, that people can purchase, they can upgrade with different features later. But we wanted to make sure we had a base product with really great performance. Then that price target shifted due to the ongoing RAM crisis around the world.”
Lyons also said that forecasting for the cost of certain components used in the Steam Frame is an ongoing challenge.
Not exactly boding well of the Steam Deck 2.
I’m ok with it Valve. I might not be able to pick one up right now but it doesn’t mean I’m not interested. Just please don’t give up on FEX-EMU. That to me is the true value proposition of all this.
I am still picking one up as I just want a headset with good Linux support that won’t spy on me. I’m coming from an OG Vive, so it should still feel like a big upgrade.
Same boat! I missed the steam deck, so I’m also looking forward to streaming 2d games from my PC.
Same. Got an index but the wiring aspect always hindered me on a short vr session. Booting up and placing base-stations. And it almost always was kind of a workout after an hour. I hope for the new one to be less warm and lighter on my head. Such that it is more of a relaxed goggle.
I sadly barely used mine but have pleanty of vr titles i alwase wanted to try but were too much of a hassle to set it all up just for an relaxed hour after work.
With the wireless and local play? Some easy minded or story games could be played on a couch without any hassle.
Oh and also no more whine from the base-stations spinning at mach 3 :3
Yeah. This sucks.
I was hoping for a new generation of hardware but I do t feel like it’s worth it at current prices.
It feels like a large expense for a step sideways.
It’s not that prices are too high, it’s that wages are too low.
Here’s a two things that will greatly improve this situation, unions forcing higher wages, and taxing the filthy rich till they’re no longer billionaires.
When prices go up and wages remain the same, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
I mean, it’s both, right?
We all agree wages suck shit, but my company bought 64GB of RAM for our laptops last year for about $200 each, and right now that same stuff is, what, $900?
Both things can be true at once.
I’m still haunted when RAM was at all time lows in recent history and I didn’t stock up. Figured I’d do it when I did a full upgrade a year later.
😭
I recommended a laptop to someone a few days ago only to discover its price had LITERALLY DOUBLED since last year:
Had to buy RAM for my work machine a few days ago, 600€ for 32GB. Shit hurts, man.
Ouch. I recently had a set of 64 GB sticks of RAM go bad and I went through weeks of back and forth with Patriot to get it RMA’ed under their lifetime warranty.
Worth every bit of hassle but yeah, I shudder to think if anything else dies at this point.
Have you not been paying attention to the semi-conductor and memory market? Prices are absolutely too high due to AI at this point and is part of the issue of why this and every other thing that uses a electronics is expensive as all heck. There’s a reason why my 64 GB of ram I bought for 110 dollars is now 500 bucks.
Wages and taxes are a whole other topic that while also true, is a whole other discussion outside of the release price of a VR headset.
Just to play devil’s advocate, everything is politics. If wages were higher, if multi-millionaires didn’t exist, if you owned your home and had a larger say in your communities laws and regulations, if your anti-trust agency was doing their job, if you owned a part of your work the AI bubble would look wildly different if not be impossible in its current form. We’re seeing the effects of wild wealth concentration and financial markets detached from their underlying financial output.
People don’t have a spare thousand dollars… They just don’t.
A lot of people do have that. There are those who do and are willing to pay out the nose for tech toys to dull the pain.
I mean just look at the current sale of GPU’s.
Some people saved since the announcement a year ago.
I just wish they had better support for Linux out of the box. Still on the fence about buying one, but it’s more battery and performance related than price related (though the price is oof, fucking data centers and AIssholes)
Edit: To be clear, I’m referring to streaming from a Linux gaming rig being unsupported. Yes, I am aware SteamOS is Linux based. This will almost definitely be fixed at some point, no doubt, but still though…
I just know it would have been $600 if our biggest issue was still cryptobros.
$600 is still insanely expensive for my usage, but somewhat justifiable
I just wish they had better support for Linux out of the box.
it literally runs linux itself? what about the Frame is unsupported from linux?
Right, but from what I’ve read, Linux streaming is unsupported at the moment, so if you’re not using Windows for your gaming rig, you’re supposedly SOL for now. I’m sure that will change in time, especially given how many improvements they’ve made to the Steam Deck.
Edit: This is not the article I originally read about this in, but I found another post talking about it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49706428 and it references Linux Tech Tips from 2 days ago, so if it’s been fixed, it was fixed recently.
Can you cite a source for this? I would be streaming from my Linux PC and I haven’t seen anything from Valve saying that streaming VR (or even that foveated streaming specifically) is Windows exclusive, and if it was that would really surprise me.
Looking for the article now, so far all I found was an old X post from August 24. I’ll edit this comment with the link when I can find the article.
Like I said earlier though, I can’t see them not fixing it (I am assuming it hasn’t been fixed yet, which may no longer be correct).
Edit: This is not the article, but I found another post talking about it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49706428 and it references Linux Tech Tips
Gotcha, thanks! That’s the only source I could find as well.
And if (BIG if, granted) this Reddit post is to be believed, it seems effectively debunked: https://www.reddit.com/r/virtualreality_linux/comments/1welkhs/steam_frame_confirmed_by_linustechtips_to_not/
Cool, I’m thinking about picking one up despite the price so if I do I’ll test it on Bazzite to see how things go. Thanks!
I’m gonna try to get one too so I’l be dealing with whatever comes up on CachyOS with it!
It would be worth the price if they had more games to offer for it. They had how many years since half life alyx?
I’m hard pressed to blame Valve for that. They’ve made massive contributions to a VR ecosystem that almost everyone seems to have stagnated in developing for.
I love VR, but it is something strange to think I’m still mostly playing the same games I bought 10 years ago. Some big players got in on it, but only to port their titles (Bethesda, mostly). Some devs have made some really cool things and development has never ceased for them, but Alyx is an outlier, really. As much as I’d like to see a follow up from Valve, I’d as much like to see that kind of energy from anyone.
You could point to Meta VR exclusives, but they hurt themselves through exclusivity.
I dunno. Alyx is the only game that makes me want to try VR. Nobody is really making any VR games for PC at all so who is to blame?
Meta/the Zucc. They bought up literally (I don’t mean figuratively) every single game studio that made a successful VR game, strung them along for three years, and then pulled the plug and shut them all down en masse.
Wow, $1100 for the entry level. I wouldn’t pay $500.
If you wouldn’t pay $500, then VR just isn’t for you. And that’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with that, but that’s basically the baseline bottom of the barrel price for this type of device (and the ones priced like that come with a LOT of caveats), so if you wouldn’t pay that price, why are you even part of the discussion? You were never the target audience in the first place.
I am the target though as I’ve wanted to get a VR setup for awhile now. I can get a Quest 3 used for $320. $1100 is just pissing your money away.
Ya enjoy your locked ecosystem. There a reason the quest is so cheap. You aren’t getting anything worth it for 500$, especially not with the inflation in tech. What a silly thing to say.
Ya enjoy wasting $1100 on something that will collect dust 95% of the time you own it. You’ll never use any headset enough to justify that price. Just ask the Apple zombies. But it’s Gabe so better defend my favorite billionaire.
To be fair it won’t record everything happening at my house like me entering passwords on my keyboard while it collects dust. I won’t go to jail and be tortured to death because of steam frame, so I think in the modern world that’s a win.
Bro, I hate Gaben and bash steam every chance I get. I’m not in the Gaben Simp Squad, believe me. It’s a good product though, same for the steam deck. Still a soft monopoly and the cunt has too many boats, but credit where credit is due.
I’m also not getting it because I’m simply not that into VR, at least at that price point. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad headset.
I’m sure it is a solid product, but charging $1100 when a comparable option can be found for half the price is insulting. Privacy concerns be damned, they all spy on you. VR is and will always be niche. This product will not appeal to general consumers. There is no killer app and it’s way out of price.
Honestly, what comparable options. I’ve looked. There’s the quest, but it’s sold at a loss, is honestly not very strong and it has a locked ecosystem which is a real boner killer imo.
Then no, you are not the target then. If you cannot afford it, then it isn’t for you.
I can afford it, I’m just not dumb enough to pay it.
Seems to me this is just not something that interests you. Why are you so down on others for enjoying something you wouldnt?
Mostly because you can’t speak ill of valve or the Gabe cucks come out in droves. Its pathetic to see lemmings simping for another shit billionaire. I guess that’s to be expected from gaming “culture.”
If youre interested Gamernexus did a review alongside metaquest3. I value my privacy, to that end I’m full-on leaning toward Frame, additional cost up front is nothing compared to what would be lost with Zucks VR iteration, in my mind. No one should tell you how to spend your money though, friend.
